Humanity has been deemed antagonistic, toxic, and vaguely sentient by the other aliens of the multiverse, and must prove their right to exist by competing in a singing competition. If they don't make the top 10, they'll be obliterated. Competing on behalf of humanity is a washed-up glam-rock band.
This book was endlessly funny and full of heart. It celebrates all of life's diversity, awkwardness, hopes, fears, little joys, and big regrets. There are some really moving passages about feeling endangered - being queer, being an immigrant, being a nerd, being contrary to someone else's expectations in general - that had me tearing up.
However, big however for non-Sci-Fi fans, A LOT of the moralizing comes after a random anecdote about a made up alien's version of normal. If you don't like Dr. Seussian levels of nonsense, this is not the book for you. If you like Hitchhiker's Guide and Rick & Morty, pick up this book!!!

I didn't find the conclusion as compelling as the first book in the duology. Most of the supporting characters were dragged along for the ride, and the fact is pointed out in universe with zero consequences. Even the "villains" don't take many actions against our heroes, remaining vague threats and potential political opponents (who are easily out-maneuvered, turns out!). The plot was a little boring, our crew isn't in the same level of danger as the first book, there are no tragic deaths or noble sacrifices. At the end of the day, this book was mostly melodrama: Fable being naive, Fable being more upset about lying than murder, Fable just wanting her Daddy and her boyfriend to say "I love you" to make everything okay, Fable being rescued instead of taking agency... At one point, I realized I was just reading to get it over with, there was no more suspense or joy carrying the plot :/. Disappointing.

Cyborg Cinderella fulfills a desperate need inside me I didn't even know I had! I love the sci-fi fairytale retelling, and I think an Asian protagonist is necessary and beautiful, at this moment in time. There were a few great discussions sprinkled into the adventure: Overcoming prejudice, suffering of immigrants/refugees, the dangers of indoctrination... And the plague storyline was TOO REAL given these past two years under quarantine :'(.

But for all the good things this book does... it's still very predictable. Nothing subtle here :/. I often felt like I was reading the script of a Disney TV show/movie, like The Descendants. The villain, especially, has no finesse, clunky dialogue, is often repetitive with her threats (and weirdly NO ONE punishes her for being overtly antagonistic). Just... I'm not looking forward to following this villain around for four books, she's hokey. The rest of the world is great, the "princesses" are awesome, but their Big Bad...meh :/.

A beautiful, beguiling fantasy! Many times I felt like I was being drawn into a play, the story was so descriptive, sensual and rich. I love the surprising moral inversion (protagonist demons and antagonist angels), and I love the merger of so many myths from different cultures/religions to create one world. AND, at the risk of sounding redundant, I love the motif about how truth and story are a matter of perspective.

I had some nitpicky moments. I wish Laini Taylor had gone back and forth between Karou and Madrigal's stories, instead of saving Madrigal's for the final chunk of the book; I think it would have created more sympathy for Akiva earlier on, and made his sympathies for Karou less sudden and jarring.
I was also a little upset that even though this book is sex-positive, and says beautiful things about how Love is feeling safe and "home" with someone... it still felt, sometimes, like the book was saying Love requires sex....which it doesn't. I don't think that was an intentional correlation, I think Karou's ex, Kaz, is supposed to highlight how physical attraction does NOT equal intimacy....BUT STILL, in some of Karou's scenes with Akiva, she's fixated on his divine beauty, or the feel of him... Physical touch is not the point of Love, just saying :/. End soap box.

All in all, these worlds are beautiful, full of layers and twists, and I cannot wait to see what's next for Karou

Another solid entry in The Lunar Chronicles ^_^. Scarlet is an awesome twist on Red Riding Hood; I like that she's not naive, and is capable of taking care of herself. I like that she's not racist (a rarity in this universe) and doesn't automatically distrust Cinder or Wolf on the grounds that they're Lunar or have body-mods. She sees past the surface of people, and weighs actions and intentions instead (leading to some interesting and unexpected alliances and conflicts, depending upon who measures up to their potential). Scarlet shines.

And Cinder, while on the run, finds her moral compass spiraling, more and more willing to behave like the enemy if it means her own safety. The question of how far she's willing to go, how much she's willing to rationalize as an acceptable evil for a greater good, is gut-wrenching and thought-provoking.

...

But the rest was, again, a little hokey and predictable. The reveal about Wolf and the rest of the "pack" was dampened by the fact that it was spoiled in the first book. The romantic subplot, once again, happens VERY quickly, like it's being forced to adhere to a deadline. The villain continues to get away with mass murder, and instead of being held accountable for her atrocities, the focus of her subplot is on an arranged marriage that EVERYONE can see is more hostage situation than true alliance... Carswell Thorne, while cute, is the obligatory cocky, wise-cracking, playboy, space pirate; been there, done that. The genetically modified super-soldier with a berserker mode, been there, done that...

And from a technical standpoint, I was one again disappointed by the immaturity of the writing. Ex. "He had murder on his face."... Do you mean he had a look of murderous intent? Because it sounds like he has guts splattered on his face. And that just makes me think of "egg on his face". And that expression makes me think that he accidentally killed someone, and their blood splatter is all over his "oops" face... Definitely not the vibe the author intended XD.

So once again, the story is fun, the princess is phenomenal, but the overall maturity with which language, tropes, and relationships are handled reads more middle grade than YA.

The first book was a delightfully atmospheric fairytale, which - despite its explanations in-universe for why it happens - still suffered from two enemies becoming lovers-at-first-smolder.

This book leaves the fairytale in the desert, and soars off into the sky.

This book is phenomenal in how real and heartbreaking it is: The fatigue of towing the grey moral line in war-time; the strength it takes just to survive, nevermind imagine great or openly rebel; the importance of culture and familiarity, friendships and small kindnesses, when you're a refugee; how suffering abuse can cause a victim to turn inward, and further harm or blame themselves, instead of standing up to the true culprit; the masks we wear to project strength and last another day... This book is emotionally raw, and genuine to its characters' psychologies and hardships. It is beautiful in how devastating it is; being magical does not spare these heroes from suffering, enduring, and growing. And romance is not the answer for how to build one's self-worth.

Trigger warnings, most definitely. But a flawless book which only leaves me hungry to see where the series goes next.

I loved the concept: Steampunk, futuristic-feudal Japan with myths come to life; have your mechs AND your kaiju! Plus, I'm a sucker for griffins, so Buruu was just about the greatest animal sidekick ever.
...
The PROBLEM was, I read the Nevernight trilogy before this book, and Yukiko is VERY OBVIOUSLY the first draft of Mia:
Beautiful, lithe, fair-skinned, black-haired girl, who is of high social standing but not royalty, sees her father dishonored and her mother imprisoned then murdered (in this version she's pregnant, in Nevernight her son was a toddler) by a psychotic, narcissistic, despot. Her parents were complicated people, her father guilty of an affair, but still she sympathizes with their plight, and she seeks to avenge them. Aided by a magical animal sidekick who shares an empathic connection with her, the girl sets out to assassinate the despot. She is skilled with a blade, but she is outmatched by terrain and her enemy's resources, and in this world full of myths - including a masculine Sun god, a feminine goddess of Night and The Underworld, and a god of Storms - at times it seems the gods themselves are out to aid and thwart her. During her journey she learns that the very essence of the land itself is not what she once thought it was, and overthrowing the despot is not just a personal quest of hers, but a necessity to set right the balance of nature.
...
Transplant the setting from Japan to pseudo-Italy and you've got Nevernight. Which I loved... but I think Mia did it better. Her personality is clearer than Yukiko's. And the writing in Nevernight is cleaner, more poetic, less reliance on clunky exposition. Other people's emotional journeys are implied and interpreted, not stated baldly, lending a more realistic feel to all of Mia's subterfuge as we're there with her in trying to discern the truth about the people around her. And while steampunk Japan is cool, telling a story with mechs and yokai and kitsune and assassins - all wrapped up around the morality tale of "respect nature" - is too.... anime. It's too derivative. It's been done. I got very Princess Mononoke vibes from this book. Nevernight may have Yukiko at its core, but it's original in its execution.

Stormdancer isn't a bad book. I've just been spoiled reading Jay Kristoff's best books ^_^.

I don't understand why this book only has an average rating, it's phenomenal! XD It ticked all my horror story boxes: A place which is usually populated is suddenly empty. The silence, darkness, and layout play tricks on the mind, until you're sure the building is both A) Morphing, and B) Hiding something sinister around the bend. Unreliable characters make you question what's real. And the "monster" is a social commentary on labor: the torture of completing a repetitive task versus the scary, sometimes even dangerous, reward of actually caring for, striving for, a fulfilling purpose. Ding ding ding! Winner! I read this book in one sitting because it was that gripping! I might be biased, I currently live in Ohio and pass through Cuyahoga and Youngstown every time I drive to visit my family in New York XD. This book SPOKE to me! I KNOW this setting. I know a Ruth Anne! And I have had the "scripted disorientation" feeling of entering a large, chain store out here. I understand, in my soul, the fear of feeling like something/someone could be lurking, and you wouldn't know, because the space you're in is too big for one person to canvas.
A fantastic story, ultimately about /choosing/ to get up and do something different, even if it scares you. "Stand up or sit down!"

This book is a monstrous betrayal of its fanbase, its characters, and the rules of writing themselves. Let me spare you the anguish and boredom I just endured: The tagline is a lie, there is no apocalyptic event in this book. There is no war in this book, there are practically no battles of any kind in this book. There is very little in this book at all, Taylor opting to delay the story with fluffy metaphors and vague hints at a big reveal to come, bloating the book instead with:
- WAY too many bath scenes!
- People daydreaming about sex, and instantly finding their soulmate with a single, smoldering look.
- Redundancies, repeating passages from the previous book, or repeating whole paragraphs about how characters feel or appear.
- People waiting. And eating. And eating while waiting. And BATHING while waiting! Did I mention there are TOO MANY BATH SCENES?!
- Scientology propaganda, so it seems?
- The words "things" or "Oh!" in place of actual nouns or descriptors, so that the audience has to imagine what is happening and how to feel about it... "There were things and they did OH so much stuff!" is not a story! It's barely an outline! It's certainly not evocative of anything. I can't picture it, I don't feel for it, and therefore, this book is failing at the single greatest point of a book: To convey SOMETHING to me, the reader! Information, emotion, something!

I'm sorry I keep mashing the exclamation point. Let me break my thoughts down. Spoiler territory ahead:

1) Character Arcs and Conflicts - A story needs a number of components to be considered just that. Characters need to have some sort of conflict. A physical altercation, a moral dilemma, doesn't matter what form a conflict takes, there has to be /something/ a character cares about achieving, and something in the way of that achievement. Either a character grows and surmounts the odds to achieve their goal, or tragedy strikes and the conflict is too great to overcome; either way, Character plus Conflict is how a story is built.
In the previous books, the conflict was established as, "Races from multiple dimensions are at war; heroes desire peace." This entire finale should have been about how to attain peace: Can a cycle of violence be stopped? Can people be convinced to respect different cultures and unite beyond racial barriers? And how do people find inner peace though the trauma of war and abuse cling to them? A tall order!!! A three-prong, real world dilemma that most readers could sympathize with in some way. A true test of the characters' maturity.

INSTEAD, in this book, the races are told not to fight... so they don't.
...
And without any further racial tension, war effort, or PTSD, to propel these characters forward, the story tries to make its NEW central conflict, "Can we have sex now?" and barring that, "Can I help my friend have sex right now?" The characters' "struggles" are selfish and small, they themselves acknowledging repeatedly IN UNIVERSE that their fixation on sex is insulting and crude given the situation they're in...but the realization doesn't curb the behavior.

Moral of the story: Race wars are easy, everybody get busy!
Yeah no. Big NO. Biiiig insult to the audience -______-;.
Letter to the Editor: Writing is easy, what conflict, everybody take a bath!
Again.... no.

2) Sympathetic Characters - A character needs multiple dimensions, something an audience can relate to. The author should WANT me to sympathize with, or at least respect the complexities of, the character they design, because I WILL read about something I relate to. (And I WON'T read if I don't care.) The surface details of a character - appearance, career, relationship status, etc. - are not what give them dimension; how they act and react to conflict /is/. A character doesn't have to be pleasant, or live a life exactly like mine, for me to sympathize with them; they just have to genuinely face choices.
In the previous book: Akiva committed genocide and attempted to atone for his misguided self-righteous fury by aiding refugees. Right there, I've never experienced what Akiva has, but I understand him as a character. He faced a moral conflict, felt remorse, and changed his behavior.
Karou barely survived a sexual assault from a superior military officer, and killed her assailant. She roped a childhood friend into disposing of the body, then masqueraded her friend /as/ her attacker, so that the soldiers under his command wouldn't devolve into bloodlust and anarchy. Again, I have thankfully never been in Karou's position, but I understand her, how tenacious, audacious and resourceful she is when she needs to be.
In this book: Akiva... tells Jael not to buy weapons from Earth, and not to mobilize angels into a civil war... And that's it. Jael turns around and goes home. Akiva does not have to reckon with his own part in the war effort. He is not punished for contributing to the hostilities, nor is he burdened with training a bunch of refugees how to defend themselves or survive in a new land. He does not have to struggle with leadership decisions, like how to find enough resources for both sides to thrive and make peace now that they've devastated their home world. He doesn't have to forge a treaty or ambassador program or any kind of peace-keeping with the neighboring dimension, to make sure an arms race between races will never happen again... Nothing happens. Akiva has no choices to make, no growth to pursue...
Karou's story is the same as Akiva's, except she doesn't get to even deliver the ultimatum to Jael. She is essentially a prop, to show that humanity is united behind Akiva's terms for peace. Everything that was Karou, her anguish, her paranoia, her cunning, her capacity for empathy... Gone. She doesn't face any consequences for killing her military's leader, she isn't punished or doubted, she never has to rise above the prejudices against her to prove her mettle as a worthier leader.
But hey, you know what DOES happen... Akiva and Karou stare longingly across a room at each other. Over. And over. And over again. I can tell you a lot about the sunny glow of Akiva's smile, the fire in his eyes... I can tell you about Karou's alarming, penetrating black eyes, and the way her blue hair cascades... But I can't tell you who these two are as leaders, as survivors, as mentors... Nothing. They grew into a whole lot of nothing.
Sexual tension is not a character arc.

3) Telling vs. Showing - We've heard this phrase, yes? Instead of saying, "An angel kissed a demon, and then they initiated the apocalypse" or "The sky was devoured by monsters, but the godstars pierced the darkness" or "She would be the stuff of history books, many many volumes, none of which were boring" - instead of SAYING all of that, you have to.... you know... show us. Describe the battle being waged between angels, chimaera and humanity. Or alien angels and sky monsters. Or... anything. This book promises that mind-blowing action is happening... somewhere... Just not on the page. You don't have a book if the story is in promises, not pages.

4) Prophecies - Call it what you want, prophecy, destiny, fate, etc. But once an event is pre-ordained, it takes all the agency away from the characters. It's a hackneyed writing tool, and should be retired. But in the case of this book, taking agency away from our heroes /inadvertently/ glorifies rape. What, it's okay that Akiva's mother was raped by Joram, or that Karou was assaulted, because in the end those events brought these two lovebirds together, and that's their destiny?!?! No. Just, no.

5) Sex Positivity vs Gratuitous Detail - I am all for honest sexual encounters being discussed in YA Fantasy. It's a sensitive, tricky subject - moments of self-discovery and raw emotions all braided together - and a fantasy book can provide a safe space for a reader. But not EVERY character motivation should boil down to sexual activity.
Akiva and Karou, and Zuzana and Mik are OTP... because they are teenagers who are really really pretty and want to have sex in a tub?
Jael, Joram and Thiago are evil... because they're all rapists.
The seraphim were once space colonizers... who felt it was their duty to fly to multiple dimensions, get busy with the locals, and make lots of babies to carry on their legacy...
Did you know that Queen Scarab and her fellow Stelarian used to bang? Not sure why that's relevant to the whole Queen Scarab can Thanos everyone with a SNAP plot. But the author sure wants us to know that Queen Scarab got it on once.
Eliza is a virgin. Not sure why the sexual activity of the scientist-turned-prophet matters. She's here to tells us about space invaders, not her kooch, but okay. Good thing the author told us that Eliza looked at Queen Scarab once and instantly knew theirs was a queer romance for the ages. Not part of the space war prophecy, just a fun fact, Scarab and Eliza are totally going to do it, and that makes them kick@$$ representation now, right folks?! (No.)
Hazael got it on MANY times before he died! So glad we cleared up that mystery. Wouldn't want him to have been a cliche virgin sacrifice.
Remember Kaz? No? Understandable, he didn't effect the plot AT ALL! But you probably remember that he boned two girls, right? No? You forgot all about him? Man. I wish I could.

Sorry for the sassy pants, but bottom line: Sexual activity is not a worthy detail on its own. A character's sexual orientation or level of activity doesn't denote their moral compass, doesn't define their personality, and doesn't highlight who these characters are when faced with conflict (see point number 1 about WHAT MAKES A STORY, EVEN!). Now, a /sex scene/ can be used to great effect to help a character grow. What someone does in an intimate setting is a great question! But the info dump that a character HAS been intimate or desires TO BE intimate doesn't show me who that character is as a person (see point 3 about Telling vs. Showing).
Here's a non-sexy example: "I went to the store. I want to go to the store, again, tomorrow."
... Any personality there? Do you know who I am?
"At the store, I pinched a browning avocado; perfect for toast tomorrow. But no fresh pumpernickel in the bakery meant I would have to make do with a bag of wheat bread. I scowled at the substitution."
Did you glean anything that time? Health conscious, quirky, go-getter? Condescending perfectionist? A monster who willingly eats overripe avocado??? No matter, a PERSON went to the store. It wasn't just an info dump of person + store + avocado. It was a tiny story of someone with choices to make, and feelings about said choices.
Circling back, if you're going to include information about a character's sex life, it better be relevant to what you want to relate to the audience: The character's personality, feelings, motivations and conflicts. An info-dump is unnecessary, disrespectful, and disruptive to the story.

6) Mystical Black Person Trope - Noooo... I think I literally said that, then held my face in my hands, when I realized that Eliza was a beautiful, "exotic", "ebony" psychic. Please, listen to the black community. They deserve positive representation in fiction of any media. They are tired of being misrepresented as over-sexualized mystics from a foreign land. Don't do this.
Also, Eliza's arc was handled all wrong... An independent, successful, black scientist discovers that her purpose in life... is to be a repository for some colonist's diary, and lead a bunch of white folks and animals back to the promised land in the sky?!?!!... No. No. NO! Do not glorify colonialism as some divine calling. Do not dismiss science in favor of cultist religion! Do not sidestep a conversation about systemic racism or slavery by putting a black person in charge of the newly-liberated slaves, as if to say, "See, it's fine now! We have a black president!" NO!

There is more, so much more, to pick apart. I could write a whole essay on how this book betrayed the purpose of literature. But I think I have made my base point clear: The words of a book should matter. They should convey meaning or feeling. They should carry a character, or situation, from one state to another. They can even address difficult topics in a safe way, so that the audience can see themselves in the work, maybe grow a little or feel something, too.

This is not a book. It is a paperweight. Do. Not. Bother.